Is something brilliant happening?

Shameless' Fiona
Gardening; guess she must live
Round corner from me

There were half-formed plans for Friday night, but they were all jettisoned once we realised that we had the first viable beer garden day of the year staring us in the face.Walking across London Bridge to the chosen pub, I was pretty much steering by sonar, because the colour of the sky needed my eyes that it might be etched on to my memory so that, when I get my pocket dimension, I can alternate this with the (previously planned as permanent) colour of the sky from my first night in Perranporth.
violentbec was one of the prime movers of the pub plan, but absented herself fairly early. Between this and her nationality I decided she was in fact Gatsby, and warned her that Mia Farrow's not worth dying for. I'm such a fountain of useful advice.

If Friday had the weather right, Sunday was overdoing it, so I tried to keep to the shadows for much of miss_newham's Tube Walk. Baker Street to Bond Street was never going to be an epic march, but Marylebone High Street in summer is good strolling territory - as opposed to Oxford Street itself, which could make a shy bald Buddhist reflect and plan a mass murder. Inexplicably, we then ended up not in the handy Marlborough Head or other hostelry with an outdoors, but in the Three Tuns. atommickbrane enumerates the sins of the Three Tuns sufficiently that I'd be a fool to try topping her, but I will add that as far as I'm concerned, that place would probably be a poor choice of pub even in midwinter. Fie on you, Bad Pub! When violentbec and chum arrive, we depart for Hyde Park where we are informed there are picnicking goths, but by the time we've negotiated Marks & Sparks and purchased some truly appalling booze (and, in insecuregoddess' case, a sheep purse) some of them have already fallen victim to Booze. Still, being English, now we have commenced to picnic we are damn well going to picnic. Even when it gets cold, and dark, and windy. Eventually we abandon the uneven struggle and retire to a pub, except not the pub we were aiming for, but nevermind. By this stage the Three Tuns and the collapse of the picnic have me spitting blood about gings and the Flugtag ("CROCODILES WITH SPIKES ON!"), but I am still overall in a good mood. Ain't that peculiar? I can't stop for long as I'm aiming for cappuccino_kid's birthday drinks, en route to which I read the second Supreme Power trade (\m/) and rendezvous with vivid_blue and Robin (I will later try to persuade the latter to get LJ'd up, that he might get the same tag treatment as everyone else rather than being referred to by an archaic 'name'). The chosen pub is somewhat remote but, almost uniquely for a pub with a weekend DJ, the music is ace. Tom Tom Club! Orange Juice! I approve.

My Saturday went ciderwineciderwinecider. Somewhere in there may lie the explanation for my getting in on Saturday night, not shutting my curtains, and setting my alarm. Empathising with Takeshi Kovacs, I curse my younger self and get another few hours' sleep, but even after that it seems that the week has exhausted itself with its gestures towards spring, and had no substance left from which to craft Sunday. Responding in kind to this nowhere day I re-read comics, confirming that We3, Wanted and Venom Versus Carnage were as good as I remember, and Azzarello's Batman as bad. I also watch I Heart Huckabees, a film about whether everything matters or nothing does. Unlike most cultishly successful American films of that type, this one really is as smart as it thinks it is; unlike the director's previous Three Kings, it doesn't even lapse into cliche at the end. Plus, it's preceded by a trailer for Ridley Scott/Orlando Bloom Crusades epic Kingdom of Heaven, which looks likely to be awesome.

RIP, John Delorean; you seem to have been quite a bad man, but without your car two great films would probably not have been as good. And anyone who tries to rescue their business with a massive coke deal, rather than running cap in hand to the taxpayers, deserves a certain amount of props. Rail companies, take heed.